


Anchovis

by GenuineSnoof



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Charles is high, Established Relationship, Fluff, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Humor, M/M, Olive Sucking, Protective Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 12:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10536393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenuineSnoof/pseuds/GenuineSnoof
Summary: During the Recruiting Road Trips, Charles and Erik stay at a hotel in a big city. Charles finds out their neighbor is high on weed.





	

"What are you doing?" 

When no immediate answer came from Charles, Erik nudged him with his bare foot while reaching for the opened bag on his bed to get out a fresh undershirt. He'd instantly headed for the shower the moment they'd entered the hotel room after seven hours on the road - most of which Erik had spent sweltering in unseasonable heat and trying to follow Charles' rambling about something groovy, possibly himself. 

Now, Erik stood barefoot and shirtless in front of the bed he'd claimed - the one closest to the door, as always - and looked down at Charles sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, hands resting on his knees.

"Are you one with the universe?" 

"With the neighbourhood," Charles replied in a low, calm tone and opened his eyes. "The receptionist thinks you're hot."

"How unethical-"

"Nah, I think so, too."

"Of YOU," Erik finished. "Why're you peeking into everyone's mind? Is this gonna be like New York?" he added with a frown, not bothering to conceal the concern in his voice.

"No!" Charles smiled. "No, no, no, New York, why're we still talking about that? That was ages ago."

"Three weeks."

"No, no, I've been training, haven't I? I'm much more in control now. No - this is fun! The work with Cerebro has widened my range so much, it's amazing!" Charles beamed. 

"It wasn't lack of range that was the problem in New York."

"Well, of course, but now I could block everyone, but I choose not to, and it's... just like Cerebro! I can just shift through the minds of everyone within, I don't know, a block? Two maybe! And if it gets too much, I just pull back. Cool, huh? You said yourself I needed practise, too!"

"I meant with freezing opponents while you're being shot at."

Charles tsk'ed and shook his head. "Everything has to be so violent with you. Look at it this way: this is good practise to spot potential opponents in a crowd."

Erik pursed his lips, thinking, and nodded. "That is true."

"See? AND," Charles added with a grin, "it's fun! The woman in 26B stole a candy bar when she was 12. The book she's reading just made her think about it."

Erik nodded like you would at an overexcited child who'd just learned about dinosaurs and put on a sweater, then sat down to put on socks. "I'm going out to get some food, you coming?"

"No, I'm not hungry, I'll stay here and practise. Liza from the hotel bar doesn't like men who drink. All pigs, the lot of them."

"I see."

"Everyone, actually. All men are pigs."

Erik tied his shoelaces, not looking up. "That's groundbreaking use of telepathy right there, Charles, I'm sure. D'you want me to bring you something to eat?"

"No. Maybe a sandwich. Ah, see, her friend Carol has a new boyfriend, and he hasn't tried to chat up Liza ONCE, yet. She's right there every time he comes to visit Carol. Pigs, all of them."

Erik sat for a moment, watching Charles.

"You could bring some scotch for chess later," Charles said and stretched his neck slightly to look at Erik, when he didn't answer. "Erik?"

"Sorry, I wasn't sure you were talking to me."

Charles frowned. "I got this. Trust me. I can leave it when it gets too much. It's just so exciting!" He beamed again. "I used to be so afraid of just drifting, because I wasn't sure I could control myself or keep myself from getting lost or, well, making anyone aware of what I was doing. But now it feels like I really understand my gift and for once I can just..." He gestured as if trying to reach for the right description physically. "Use all of it," he finished, not looking very satisfied with that. "Does that make sense?"

Erik gave a little fond sigh and was about to reply that, yes, he understood, but also New York, when Charles suddenly giggled and blinked repeatedly as if he'd just heard some hilarious nonsense.

"Our next door neighbor's high."

Erik closed his mouth, watching Charles giggle to himself for a bit. "Charles..." he warned.

"No, no, don't worry, it's quite amusing."

"Charles."

"I'll only stay a bit, I promise. Go get food, your stomach's growling."

Indeed it was and Erik got to his feet, but turned before opening the door to look back at Charles. "You're not going to be a quivering mess in a corner when I get back, will you?"

"No!" Charles laughed. "Of course not. Just go, I'll be fine."

"I mean it. I'm not good at taking care of people."

Charles winked. "I beg to differ, darling."

"When there's nothing in it for me," Erik said. 

Charles snickered softly but when Erik didn't move, he rolled his eyes. "I'll be all right. I'll stop when it gets too much."

"I'll just leave you whimpering in the corner, I mean it."

"I don't whimper," Charles said indignantly and at the image in Erik's mind of him burying himself deeper in the blankets in the early morning added, "That's not whimpering, that's ... high-pitched swearing."

"Stay out of my head," Erik said.

"You wanted me to see that." Charles poked his tongue out at Erik. "Go get food. Your hunger's really loud."

Erik suppressed a sigh - and the sudden suspicion that Charles was making him even hungrier just so he'd leave - look a quick step towards Charles and bent over to press a kiss to Charles' head. "Be careful," he muttered. "You won't like me when I'm mad."

"I'll be fine," Charles said, bending his head again to press a quick kiss to Erik's chin. "I've never been more fine. This is... groovy." He grinned.

"Right." Ruffling him goodbye, Erik straightened and left the room. 

'You COULD bring ice cream,' Charles' voice said in his head when he stepped into the lift.

'Stay out of my head.'

'Certainly. Chocolate and raspberry!'

Erik sighed and told the liftboy to get him to ground level.

 

***

He really should have started to wonder when he left the deli next to the hotel with half the shop's stock in paper bags. But then, Charles had said to bring scotch and he probably would be hungry by now. Erik had planned on bringing him something to eat, anyway. Maybe not mussels and olives and stuffed peppers and enough bread to build a small fort with, but, well, it'd been there, it'd looked delicious and why not? It wasn't like you could ever have enough olives.

Stopping just outside the hotel, Erik frowned. What a Charles thing to think. Was the posh little brat rubbing off on him this much? Olives and ...

And then it hit him. Stuffed anchovis. He'd specifically asked for stuffed anchovis after randomly pointing at things at the deli for quite a while. 

"Du kleines..." Muttering under his breath, Erik walked on, thinking insults in English as loud as he could. 

Stuffed anchovis. Motherfucker.

"Erik!" the porter greeted him with a big grin. He was a tall man in his fifties with a small paunch giving him the look of someone in the early stages of pregnancy. "Ooooo," he said when he spotted the bags Erik was carrying. "Did you get the cheese, too?"

Erik stared at the man for a second, then rolled his eyes. "Charles-"

"I know, right? Isn't this groovy? Look at me, I'm a ghost! I can possess people! Woooooooooohuuuuu," the porter howled in a spooky voice, flailing his arms like he was a floating spirit.

Erik scratched the spot on his forehead he thought his exasperation might be located behind. "What about not drawing attention to ourselves?"

"I'm not! I'm not even me! I'm Philip, he doesn't know you. Give us an olive, I want to see if I can taste it."

Erik sighed. "Move him out of the way and stop this."

"No, no, c'mon, give him an olive. Me," Charles/Philip said after a moment's thought and giggled. 

"Our neighbor is still high, hm?"

"Yup. He's eating tuna pizza with extra onions and watching Star Trek. Olive."

"No. And stop this." Erik stepped around Philip, opening the door for himself.

"But it's fun," an elderly woman told him, when he walked past the reception desk. Her husband didn't even turn to look who she was talking to. "This is Mable, by the way. She would definitely like an olive, but don't give her nuts, she's allergic."

"Charles, fucking STOP this!" Erik hissed and hurried on towards the lift.

The liftboy, a very friendly looking man in his 20s, nodded a greeting at him. The second the doors had closed, he turned to Erik and smiled. "Anchovis, then?"

"Charles, I mean it, cut this-" Erik was cut off abruptly by the man throwing his arms areound him and kissing him on the lips. 

Startled, Erik shove at him and backed away till he hit the wall. "Charles!"

The liftboy beamed. "That was... weird," he said. "But," he grinned mischieviously, "kinda hot." 

Erik held out his hand, palm out, when he started to approach again. "I swear I'll knock him unconscious, I don't care what that'll do to you."

The liftboy pouted. "Spoil sport."

"If you weren't stoned out of your mind, you'd be appaled by your own behaviour," Erik said sternly.

The liftboy sighed. "Oh boo-woo. He won't remember any of this." He smiled. "Poor guy. He was checking out your perfect arse, anyway. You won't believe how many people beside me think you're incredibly hot."

"Charles."

"If he'd been any braver, he'd have done it himself. Maybe I should let him remember it, he'll feel confident enough to try it with someone else, then."

"Leave the kid alone. I'll give you an olive, okay?"

"Yay!" the liftboy exclaimed and clapped his hands once.

Erik took out the jar of olives and gave one to the liftboy, who sucked it out of Erik's fingers with a wanton look.

"Hmmmmmm." He smacked his lips and grinned. "I CAN taste it." 

"Good for you," Erik said. "Now stop trying to seduce me wearing someone else's body."

"That sounds so wrong," the liftboy said just as the doors were opening. "Sex Floor, sir." He winked.

Erik contemplated just taking the stairs down again and looking for a different hotel where he could eat the bloody anchovis by himself, but in the end he resigned to walking to their room.

"You're the worst," he said as a greeting when he opened the door. "You're high and embarrassing and you'll pout at me all day tomorrow, 'why didn't you stop me, Erik', 'you should have stopped me, Erik' and don't expect me to comfort you then."

"Anchovis!" Charles exclaimed. He had been sitting cross-legged on his bed, wearing only his briefs and undershirt and now jumped up to throw his arms around Erik and kiss him fiercely. "I love you so much."

"You're high," Erik said, unimpressed.

"Guilty. And horny. And so hungry. Where're my olives?"

Erik held up the bags he was holding and Charles hugged them, letting himself fall backwards so he sat on the bed again. Spreading the contents on the bed, he stuffed olives into his mouth. "So good. Olives are God's way of telling us he's proud of us."

Erik sat down on his bed and took off his shoes. "Sure, honey. Have you done anything I should know about?"

"Not yet." Charles winked.

Erik looked up at him. "Hm mm. After all this? In your dreams, Liebling. I meant anything like making a debutante rob a bank or have a middle aged lottery winner sign it all over to charity."

"Erik, I'm not a monster," Charles said indignantly. "And Nils likes Star Trek himself. He was just too lazy to turn the TV on, so I nudged him." 

Erik moved his head away from the olive being stuck in his face, then quickly grabbed it out of Charles' fingers and ate it. "Will you stop being high the second you leave his mind?"

"Dunno. I don't feel high, anyway," Charles said, stuffing stuffed anchovis into his mouth with both hands. "Aww, these are divine."

Erik watched him. Sitting there in his underwear, eating delicatessen like an eager kid stuffing himself with french fries and beaming at him, he looked strangely adorable. Less like a man who could "possess" people like a ghost and more like a townie out alone in the big city for the first time.

Suddenly noticing he was smiling, Erik moved to sit next to Charles on his bed and drew him against him in an embrace. He kissed the top of his head. "You're the worst."

"So you want me to do something you'll need to know about after all?"

"No. Just get out of that kid's head. Whenever you want," he added, putting his cheek against Charles' hair.

Charles picked up Erik's hand and kissed it, then put an olive in it and sucked it out of Erik's fingers like the liftboy had.

Erik laughed. "Blödmann." He shook his head.

'Yes, whatever that is, but yours,' Charles thought and sucked at Erik's fingers, giggling around them.

Erik suppressed a moan. 'Show me you're just in my head and I'll think about it.'

Charles licked up Erik's fingers, looking at him, then lifted his head to kiss him deeply. 'I'm here,' he thought and opened his mind for Erik to see.

'Still high?'

'On you, yeah,' Charles thought and smiled into the kiss before Erik could think his reply clearly. 'I know, I know, the sexiest Blödmann.'

'The worst,' Erik thought and rolled them over so he could draw Charles on top of him. 'Stop thinking of olives, love, I'll give you something to suck on.'

Charles broke the kiss, laughing. "Nice." He moaned, stretching his neck when Erik started pressing little kisses to his nape and shoulder. "You know, olives can be-" a groan cut him off, "... very useful in situations like this."

"Do I dare ask?" 

"I'll show you," Charles muttered and kissed him again.

THE END


End file.
